I’m back again! Looks like we have quite a few small nuggets for you all today that can help you with you next trip. These nuggets range from all four parks, as well as a few of the resorts too. Habit Heroes at Epcot’s Innoventions has officially closed. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic […]

I’m back again! Looks like we have quite a few small nuggets for you all today that can help you with you next trip. These nuggets range from all four parks, as well as a few of the resorts too.

Habit Heroes at Epcot’s Innoventions has officially closed.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic Kingdom will be closed for a lengthy refurbishment, from April 4 through sometime in July 2016.

The Writer’s Stop is officially on the chopping block for Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Flights of Wonder at Disney’s Animal Kingdom is closed for two months, until March 17. The attraction will be gaining the addition of a permanent roof over the seating area.

Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge will be celebrating African culture with Guests on February 3, from 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. in the lobby of the Jambo House. There will be music, dancing, face painting and many activities that are a part of African culture.

Beginning February 11, Disney’s Beach Club Resort will begin offering Afternoon Tea from 1:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. at the Crescent Solarium on the following dates:

Feb. 11-14

March 24-29

May 5-8

Sept. 1-5

The solarium overlooking Crescent Gardens provides an elegant setting for Guests to enjoy classic afternoon tea, savories and sweets, such as house-made scones, petite sandwiches and pastries. A variety of alcoholic beverages will also be available.

Disney’s Port Orleans Resort French Quarter will presents their annual Mardi Gras event on February 9 from 5:00 – 9:00 p.m. in the French Quarter courtyard, Mardi Gras themed entertainment, characters, games, activities and more will be available for Guests of all ages to enjoy. To kick-off the event will be a special parade at 4:45 p.m. around the Doubloon Lagoon pool area.

Guests dining at Fulton’s Crab House may enjoy a new Sunday brunch menu from 11:30 a.m.–3:00 p.m. The brunch menu features delicious dishes including Crab and Asparagus Benedict with Lake Meadow Farm eggs, jumbo lump crab, asparagus, grilled Neuski bacon slab served on a toasted challah and topped with lobster infused hollandaise and New Orleans BBQ Shrimp with a crispy 5-minute egg, buttermilk biscuits and a spicy black pepper butter sauce, Corned Beef Hash, the Monte Cristo Sandwich and the Kobe Breakfast Burger with a fried egg, hash browns, cheddar cheese and sweet onion jam. This new menu is only available on Sundays and is in addition to the main lunch menu.

Here I am again with more game reviews based off of different attractions found at Innoventions. If you missed my review of the Great Piggy Bank Adventure App, read that here. These reviews are part of my new series, DIY (Disney It Yourself), where I explore different ways to enjoy Disney Parks at home. As […]

Here I am again with more game reviews based off of different attractions found at Innoventions. If you missed my review of the Great Piggy Bank Adventure App, read that here.

These reviews are part of my new series, DIY (Disney It Yourself), where I explore different ways to enjoy Disney Parks at home.

As you’ll soon see, I experienced hits along with a few misses. First on the list: the Habit Heroes App!

Habit Heroes

The Habit Heroes app was introduced in the Apple App Store December 12th, 2012. It can also be downloaded via Google Play. It is based off the attraction of the same name, found at Innoventions East in Epcot. The app states:

The Habit Heroes mobile app is a comic book that chronicles the adventures of the healthy Habit Heroes as they clean up health hazards around the globe. Each comic book issue unlocks an interactive tool that helps foster healthy habits in your every day life.

The app requires iOS 5.0 and is optimized for iPhone 5. It is compatible with the iPad 2 + wifi & 3G (or later), but would not work with my standard second generation iPad, purchased in 2011. However, I was able to download the game onto my iPhone 6, so all was well….or so I thought.

This app would not work! When I clicked on it, it stayed stuck on the attraction logo. I went to the website and there was no game or even comic book feature to be found.

Here’s what Maddi had to say regarding the attraction and the app:

At Habit Heroes, the app is advertised on a poster in the queue. As you exit the attraction, you will be handed a card outlining the next steps of your mission. If you stop by the kiosk at the end of the attraction, the director of Habit Heroes will encourage you to continue your mission at home via the app. The Cast Member working the attraction specifically talked about the app with me but as it didn’t work, I wonder when the last time he played it?

It was disappointing that the app neither worked nor had been updated for some time. If you’re going to advertise an app that goes hand in hand with an attraction, it should at least work properly!

The Sum of All Thrills

Sum of All Thrills is an attraction, found at Innoventions East in Epcot, that was introduced in October of 2009. It is presented by Raytheon and is featured as an interactive game on Mathmovesu.com. This game is not available as an app and requires a software download (Unity Web Player) before it can be played on the computer.

On the website, there are two activites to choose from. The first option is to design your own roller coaster, much like you would with the original attraction. You begin by choosing your vehicle: a bobsled, roller coaster or jet.

Next, you select four different tracks that will make up your personalized ride. The tracks range from a more mild experience to a wild and crazy coaster ride. You will need to test each track to see if your vehicle can successful complete the turn or hill. If you take a turn too fast, you could fly off the track. If you attempt a hill at too slow of speed, you won’t make it up. You have the options to adjust the speed of the vehicle and the height of your hills to further customize your experience.

After all four tracks are successfully working and up to “speed” (bu dum chee), you can name your coaster. After this, it’s time for your roller coaster to make it’s grand debut!

A small screen will appear where you can watch your roller coaster video. I couldn’t enlarge the video to make it full screen, and felt that took away from the experience.

After watching your video, you can choose to replay it, build another ride or post your video to Facebook.

Fellow TouringPlans blogger, Maddi Higgins, visited Sum of All Thrills attraction at Epcot to see how the website game was integrated. Here is what she had to say:

Upon entering the pre-show area for Sum of All Thrills, you’re handed a small paper card. During the pre-show video, the narrator says to bring the card home with you and promises “it’s worth keeping.” You keep the card with you during the entire attraction, using it to build your simulation and then to load it onto the ride system. The card has a website link and the code you will type in to load your game.

Hold on to that card because there is an option on the website to enter in that code to replay your roller coaster video. I thought this was a really neat perk and is a great way to relive your vacation memories.

I enjoyed how interactive the game was. Not only can you customize your own roller coaster, but I appreciate the brain power involved to determine the correct velocity and speed. I think it would be fun to incorporate this into a science or math lesson with middle school students, and I believe it successfully lays the groundwork for those wanting to experience the main attraction in Innoventions.

The second activity on the website is a game also called, “Sum of All Thrills.” It uses math skills to design the “ultimate thrill ride.” You can choose to play this game at a 6th, 7th or 8th grade math level.

The only directions on this game state: Click around to discover hidden math facts and earn even more thrill points.

You use the arrows on your keyboard to click different outdoor structures or items (such as an igloo, snow shoes and a kite). As you click on each item, it shares a bit of math and science trivia pertaining to topics such as geometry and kinetic energy.

There are three robots to click on as well. Each robot poses a different math question regarding the concept of building a roller coaster. The grade level you chose at the beginning of the game will determine how difficult the questions are to answer. Easier questions are multiple choice while harder questions require you to fill in the answer. Hint: Answering harder questions will result in a more wild ride experience.

Once you answer all three questions and click on all the structures, you are ready to view a video of the “ultimate thrill ride” you created.

Here’s the problem, the video wouldn’t play! I went through the entire game five different times and each time, the video never started. I have a MacBook Air and thought maybe it had something to do with my computer, so I tried my husbands Lenovo laptop. Sure enough, the same thing happened. Let me know in the comments if this happened to you!

The video problems aside, I was underwhelmed by this game. I appreciate the math questions as they encourage critical thinking and strive to make learning more fun. However, the game itself gives no variety. The bits of trivia are the same from game to game as are the math questions. I would chose to skip this one and design another roller coaster instead.

Have you played these games? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

Epcot recently reopened a refurbished version of its initially much maligned Habit Heroes attraction at Epcot’s Innoventions East Pavilion. Originally launched about a year ago, Habit Heroes closed almost immediately due to guest and medical professional concerns about inappropriate messages about weight-related appearance. This new Habit Heroes does not specifically mention weight, instead focusing on […]

Epcot recently reopened a refurbished version of its initially much maligned Habit Heroes attraction at Epcot’s Innoventions East Pavilion. Originally launched about a year ago, Habit Heroes closed almost immediately due to guest and medical professional concerns about inappropriate messages about weight-related appearance.

This new Habit Heroes does not specifically mention weight, instead focusing on a triad of healthy habits: movement, hydration, and good food choices.

The revamped story line follows a series of superhero-esque guides who help you learn to fight bad influences that might negatively impact your health. These bad influences are “Scorchers” who leave you dehydrated, “Sappers” who distract you from exercise or active play, and “Blockers” which fill you up with unhealthy food choices, leaving no room for nutrition.

Meeting your Habit Hero guides.

The first stop in your adventure is the training room, where you learn about these negative influences and “meet” some on screen guides who will assist you in learning to combat their evils. In the training room, as in all parts of the attraction, you have to move. The movement here is basically running in place, the more you move, the more a yellow on screen bar grows. You have positive reinforcement for following directions and expending energy.

After getting your mission, you move into a second room, filled with blaster canons. These are nearly identical to the “guns” on the Toy Story Mania ride, with the same string-pull action. You’re assigned to annihilate either Scorchers, Blockers, or Sappers, based on the color of your canon. There are small “pluses” to your shots. For example, guest working the blue canons get a little squirt of water when they successfully shoot a Sapper. Keep this in mind when you choose whether to stand at a blue station.

At first you work alone, shooting the enemy, then you’re asked to work with others in the room to combine your blasts to defeat bad guys. This is meant to convey the idea that working together makes it easier to keep bad habits at bay.

Canons in room two.

Frankly, I’m not sure what faux shooting monsters on a screen has to do with learning to eat more veggies, but I’m going to go with it.

In room three, you’re handed an RFID enabled card depicting one of the bad habits.

On large screens above you are cartoon Sappers, Scorchers, and Blockers that threaten to attack a city. Your job is to run around and rub your card on sensors placed under the screens timed to combat the matching colored bad influence. The action is very much rubbing your room key on the new theme park entrance gates.

Here too there is a second round of play in which you have to combine your actions with those of another guest in the room. Again, this emphasizes the need for teamwork and cooperation in fighting bad habits.

When your mission is complete, you move into a fourth room for debriefing and a small parting gift – a rubber bracelet.

In debriefing, you are also given a brochure/card with which you can continue your mission. The brochure instructs you to use a map to find a secret code word somewhere outside at Epcot. With the code word, you can sign up at a Habit Heroes kiosk next to the attraction for more information. If you elect to input your email address into the kiosk, you’ll receive information about a free downloadable app with additional Habit Hero play.

I downloaded the app to my iPhone and found that it had much of the practical information that I thought was missing from the Epcot attraction. At Innoventions, I thought it was fun to blast bad guys. But on a real world level, I didn’t see much actual information being dispensed other than the generic “drink water” and “move” advice available everywhere. The app solves some of these problems, offering trackers for specific exercises and consumption of water and healthy foods. Unfortunately, the information is aimed at kids, many of whom will be too young to have phones with which to access the app. (Or am I wrong about this? Do they now issue every newborn their choice of Apple or Android during the birth certificate application process?)

Overall, I’d say that Habit Heroes is pleasant enough way to pass 15 minutes at Epcot. If you’ve got a kid who needs to burn off a little energy or you have some time to kill before your Soarin’ Fastpass return time, then by all means head on over. You’re not going to find much new information, but you might get a good reminder to grab a few sips of water before heading out into the Florida sun.

Have you tried the new Habit Heroes attraction? What was your reaction? Did you like it? Did your kids? Let us know in the comments below.